


Like a Person

by junko



Series: Tag, You're It... [1]
Category: Gangsta. (Manga)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Gen, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 07:37:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4383050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In their first few years in Egastulum's District 7, Nic and Worick are split up.  Nic is working for Monroe, while Worick plies his trade for Big Mama.  It's mostly working for them... except it isn't.  Not at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Person

“ **WoriCK. I nEEd tO speAk TO yOu.** ”

It could only be Nic, a voice like that. Worick spun around, because, seriously what the hell was Nic playing at? Worick had Mavis on his arm and they were on the broadway, window shopping. This was not the time and place for Nic to show up with blood spattered on his white shirt and those tags hanging out, gleaming against his narrow chest.

By the way Mavis clutched at his arm, Worick figured she’d spotted them. Or the blood. Fuck, there was a lot of blood. And Nic had that look in his eye. He was higher than a fucking kite. Had he just come off a job? Jesus, double-fuck.

“ **dO you HAve A MInutE? IT’s imPorTaNT**.”

Worick signed the words he spoke. “Jesus, Nic. Did you forget I know sign? Shut up with that ugly-ass voice of yours already? You’re scaring the lady.”

Nic glanced at Mavis, as if seeing her for the first time. _Oh._ He signed clumsily, like he’d forgotten how. _Sorry. I.. this is the first time I’ve seen you and.. I need your… help._

No shit he did. Nic’s hands were shaking. And this half-ass signing? Something was seriously fuck-ed up.

Worick had to ditch this date. Pronto.

Her eyes were riveted to the tags, and her lips curled like she smelled something awful. “Worick, why are you still talking to that… thing?”

“Nic is my friend,” Worick snarled. “My very best friend. I was going to offer to buy you a cup of coffee for your trouble, for having to wait a few damn minutes while I talked to him, but you know what, lady? You can go fuck yourself. Literally.”

It was a bad idea. Mavis was a good, repeat customer and Big Mama was going to skin him alive for mouthing off like that, but fuck it, this was Nic. Worick turned his back on Mavis and grabbed Nic’s elbow to steer him back into the alley he must have come out of. Sure enough, there were two bodies… well, their legs anyway, sticking out from behind a dumpster. A pool of blood stained the cobblestones beneath him.

Letting Nic go, Worick turned to face him. “You just cost Big Mama about five hundred smackers. So, now tell me what the living fuck is going on.”

 _I need a favor_. Nic exaggerated the sign and repeated: _A big favor._

“You know I’m good for a favor,” Worick said, sensing this was only the tip of a very deep iceberg. “What’s this favor?”

_I need you to stash some drugs for me._

Worick gave Nic a skeptical look. Drugs? What was this? Everyone knew the Monroe Family had fingers in every pie, so what kind of drug deal got Nic this worked up? “You skimming off Monroe? Have you lost your fucking mind?”

Nic shook his head and made a simple sign, the letter “C.”

“Celebrer? Where the hell are _you_ getting a supply of Celebrer?”

Leaning back against the brick wall, Nic let out a breath. _Will you hide them for me or not? You’re the only one who can. Legally. You hold my contract._

Oh. Shit, of course, the stash was for him. Why was Nic in possession of Celebrer, anyway? Monroe was supposed to be taking care of that. And, of course, Worick would do it, but holding was still dangerous as fuck. The street value of Celebrer was insane, which was why they weren’t just buying Nic what he needed themselves--why Worick had agreed to let him to work for Monroe. “Yeah, I can keep a few safe for you, I suppose.” It wasn’t like had a fuck-ton of privacy at Big Mama’s though. Half the fucking girls would roll you as soon as look at you. He’d gotten stung a few times, being stupid. “How much are we talking about?”

Nic shrugged. _Eighty? Maybe more. Mostly uppers._

“That’s a lot of loose Celebrer. Monroe is going to figure out you’re dipping into his stash. How are you getting your hands on so much?”

 _Stop freaking out._ Nic signed. _No one knows it’s missing. It’s my dosage. I’ve been palming it._

Worick’s stomach did a funny little dip. Unbidden, the memory of a younger Nic face-planting in the dirt rushed back to him. His hands had shook back then, too. His eyes had had the same dark smudges underneath them, that same haunted, empty look. Fuck, if he wasn’t being careful--and Nic rarely was--he could send himself into early Celebrer poisoning “Is that why you look like shit?”

_Fuck off. I just did a job. I’m up right now._

If this was up, things were bad. “What’s this about? Why are you hurting yourself to hoard pills?”

Nic couldn’t look at Worick’s face as he signed: _I need to go… away._

Away.

The word was like an icepick to the chest.

Even though it was dangerous as sin with Nic hyped up right now, Worick grabbed Nic’s chin and force him to look at him, read his lips. “Away? You think you’re getting out of this place? Without m--” he was glad Nic couldn’t hear the strange noise he’d made, the childish, desperate gulp. Starting again, Worick hardened his expression and snarled, “You’re getting nowhere without your fucking contract holder and that’s me, you piece of shit. And what the fuck, Nic. Eighty pills? That’s not more than two months. What the fuck are you going to do when that shit runs out?”

Nic slid out of Worick’s grasp like it was nothing. He was two paces from him before Worick could even react. His gaze was steady and hard, his words clear and simple: _Die free._

“Die… Are you...? Shit, has it started already? But you’re not even twenty. You’re supposed to have years yet.”

_It's not that. Not yet._

“Then what the hell are you scaring me for with all this talk about dying?”

 _I can’t._ Nic’s hands faltered, so he had to start again. _I can’t stay with Monroe any longer._

“Well, why not? Maybe things wouldn’t look so fucking bleak if you took your proper dosage, huh? I know it’s not the best arrangement, but if you took your fucking drugs, Nic, you’d be okay. That was the whole fucking point of signing you up with him!”

_I’m not okay._

Another fucking slap in the face. Not okay? What the actual fuck.. 

He wanted to shake Nic until answers came out, but Worick had learned long ago that with Nic that you sometimes just had to wait. Patience, however, was not Worick’s strong point.

Taking the cigarette pack out of his pocket, he shook out a smoke. Leaning against the far wall, he rummaged through his pockets finding the lighter. He deliberately went through the motions to lite up. The familiar ritual calmed him.

“What’s going on?” Worick asked after taking a long drag to steady his nerves which were jangling out of control after seeing Nic sign ‘not okay.’ Nic never, ever said shit like ‘I’m not okay.’ “Seriously, this is not like you, Nic. Running away? You don’t do that, except when there is no other choice. What the goddamn living fuck even happened?”

Nic took a breath. _I forgot._

After waiting several minutes for Nic to say more, Worick pushed off from where he’d leaned against the far wall of the alley, “You mean you’re losing your memory or something? Like, how you’re using your voice so much… is that why you’re forgetting sign? You think this is the beginning of... all that?”

_I already told you. It’s not that._

“So what is it? Spit it out already!”

Nic shook his head. _Today. I forgot…_ his hands hung there a moment, struggling to form the next words, then with a violent push, akin to a shout, he signed: _I forgot to sit in a chair._

Nic paused for a long moment, letting that implication set in. Worick must have looked uncomprehending in his shock, because Nic continued. _There were empty seats, but when Monroe called me in, I just... I crouched down, like… I used to, like a dog at his feet. I… wouldn’t have even thought twice about it, but that fuck Monroe smiled at me._

Nic looked up then and Worick could see the pain in his eyes, despite the drugs fucking him up. He was… well, Nic was never terrified, but there was something trembling there, something really raw. It showed in the way he just kept talking: _He was happy. Monroe was happy to see me there, acting like an animal. And I remembered how angry you used to be with me. ‘Sit properly. Like a person.’ No one else is angry with me when I forget. No one. So… I need to go. I need to get out, get away from Monroe._

Nic looked away, again, like he did when he didn’t want to listen or be part of some conversation, but his hands spoke: _I have to go, or I will become the monster they say I am._

Now it was Worick’s hand that shook. When he went to take another puff of the cigarette, he realized he’d dropped it. He stared at the smoldering butt for a long moment where it lay in the slowly expanding pool of blood. He watched the glowing end until it sputtered and died out. So short. Too short a time. 

This stuff with Monroe, it had always felt wrong. Same with Big Mama. They should never have split up. They needed to be… together, for the rest of it. However long it was.

He looked back up at Nic. “Okay. We get you out of there today. Right now. Maybe… maybe I can go to the government and show them my claim, you know, on... you.” This was so fucking awkward to talk about. Worick always tried to forget that he’d traded money for Nic. It had been that simple: he’d bought his best friend like you could buy a fucking slab of meat. But it was done, and maybe this fucked-up ‘ownership’ could be a saving grace for once. “They have to provide your contract holder, don’t they? I mean, somehow Monroe is getting this shit.”

_You can’t go to the government. I can’t either._

Right, whatever, wanted criminals. “Well, Monroe can’t be getting this stuff through proper channels either. You’re still…” mine? Shit, he couldn’t say crap like that, not after the whole chair thing. “You don’t belong to him. Have you seen how the Celebrer is delivered?”

Nic’s expression was one of dumbfounded shock. _I have lost my shit. I… never even thought to look. I should have tracked it the first fucking day._

“Well, that’s your first damn job. Follow it. If we can figure out where it’s coming from, we can boost our own supply… or, maybe pay for it or barter or some shit.”

_We? Why are you saying ‘we’? You should stay with Big Mama. You still make good money, right?_

Worick nodded, but his lips were tight. He wanted to turn his face away in shame, but, as much as he didn’t want to say it, Nic needed to hear it. “You’re worried about forgetting to be human? I’m forgetting to give any fucks. The longer I say in that hellhole the more it eats away at me. We…” fuck it, he told himself: just say it, Nic can’t hear how raw your voice has become, how close you are to tears. ‘We make each other human, Nicolas Brown. I’m not doing okay without you either, all right?”

It was true. Life at the brothel was killing him. Faking all those smiles. Acting like he loved it. Pretty soon he’d be empty, too. Just a hole, a hole filled with constant, ugly fucking that pretended at love and affection.

Besides, he was getting too old to work at a brothel. People who frequented those places wanted only the freshest, youngest cuts. He was getting big enough that other men started seeing him as a threat, and not one of the toys to be played with; three times this week he’d been mistaken as the bouncer.

But the ladies still liked him. If he got out of that place, maybe he could take some of the less disgusting clients with him. A few of those bored housewives would do nicely, for instance.

Nic gave him a long look that seemed, like always, to bore right into the deepest parts of his soul. Then he nodded. _One week. Give me one week. I’ll find the supplier and deliver his head to you if I have to. You hold on to the emergency reserve of Celebrer. Worse case, we go in one week, and find the source later._

Worick nodded. It was a plan. It was more of a plan of escape than they’d ever had before.

They could always find a place to crash. Maybe they could even stay here;District 7 wasn’t exactly a tight housing market. But, if they did that, they’d have to get Nic out from under Monroe for good somehow. A guy like Daniel Monroe wasn’t going to take kindly to some two-bit whore reneging on a deal--a deal that had delivered a powerful living weapon directly into his hands. Fuck all, if only they hadn’t been so desperate back then.... But, Worick couldn’t focus on the past right now. Now he had to come up with the biggest sweet talk of his life. He had to talk up a storm, no a fucking hurricane of bull… or did he? 

Worick’s good eye honed in on the tag. A/O. No one, anywhere, was as strong as Nic. Who the fuck had to grovel? They’d walk in and say, ‘Hey, good times and all, but we’re finished. I’m taking back what’s mine, no hard feelings. See you around. Let’s stay in touch.’

It’d be ballsy as fuck and Monroe would never, ever forget it, but there had been no official transfer of contract. Besides, what was Monroe going to do? Any guys he sent after them would already be dead. That was what Nic was for.

Or so everyone else believed.

The ones who didn’t expect him to sit on fucking chairs.

Well, they should use that for once. Turn their ugly thoughts about Nic in on themselves. A fearful weapon? Fine. He was Worick’s weapon, then. Maybe that could work for them, they could make peace with all the families with Nic as a deterrent. Or, as an ally. Maybe the way to make a go of life inside the District was to be a little bit of something for everyone? 

Maybe it could work.

But they had to try. 

It should never be okay for Nic not to sit in a goddamn chair like a person. 

“Okay,” Worick said. “One week.”

**Author's Note:**

> It seems to be happening to me. I'm kind of writing loosely-interconnected fics... and this might turn into a series if I'm not careful.


End file.
